My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

It’s all relative
The relative pronouns are who , what , whom , that , whose and which and their
role  is  to  introduce  subordinate  clauses  that  tell  us  more  about  the  noun  that
precedes them. For example:
The waiter who served you may remember what time you left.
The cakes that I baked for the children do not have any nuts in them.
The boy whose name was Sue made a lot of money out of a song bemoaning the
fact that his name was Sue.

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He whom the gods love dies young .
Which  can  also  be  used  to  refer  back  to  an  entire  clause:  The  sun  was  shining
over Glastonbury, which didn’t seem right at all.
Excellent reflexes
‘And not in me: I am myself alone.’
S
HAKESPEARE
, Henry VI
Reflexive  pronouns  are  formed  by  adding  self  or  selves  to  the  basic  pronoun:
myself  ,  oneself  ,  yourself  ,  himself  ,  herself  ,  itself  ,  ourselves  ,  yourselves  ,
themselves.  They  are  used  when  the  subject  and  object  of  a  verb  are  the  same
person or thing:
I can look after myself .
Speak for yourself !
We enjoyed ourselves immensely.
The kids can never be trusted to behave themselve s when the babysitter is there.
They can also be used to avoid ambiguity. Compare these sentences:
Tom had done surprisingly well in his exams. The teacher was very pleased with
him (i.e. pleased with Tom).
Tom had done surprisingly well in his exams. The teacher was very pleased with
himself (i.e. the teacher was pleased with the teacher).
These  pronouns  can  also  be  used  for  emphasis,  or  to  mean  ‘alone,  unaided’:  I
can’t see what anyone sees in Big Brother, myself. Or: Did you really do all the
decorating yourself ?
Over-use  of  reflexive  pronouns  in  this  emphatic  sense  is  one  of  the  banes  of
modern speech. I think is just as persuasive as I myself think , and (we’re sorry to
be  dogmatic,  but  please  bear  with  us  this  once)  that  common  piece  of  modern
estate-agentese, It’s ideal for yourselves is just plain wrong.

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‘Every one to rest themselves betake.’